Fly fishing lets the line's weight carry a lure that weighs almost nothing
An artificial fly is too light and fluffy to throw against air resistance, so fly anglers turn the method around: a heavy line does the casting and the feathered hook simply rides along. Macedonian anglers were already tying red wool and cockerel feathers to hooks near the end of the 2nd century.
Flies are built by binding feathers, fur, hair or synthetic fibres to a small hook so the tufts mimic legs, wings and bristles of insects, crustaceans or small fish. Most measure 1 to 5 cm, though some reach 30 cm. Dry flies float on the surface, while others are known as wet flies, and some attractor patterns resemble nothing in nature at all. The technique is famous for trout, grayling and salmon but also catches pike, carp, bass, tarpon and bonefish.
The Roman writer Claudius Aelianus described Macedonians on the Astraeus River using a six-foot rod and an equally long line. William Radcliff argued in 1921 that the poet Martial had mentioned fraudful flies some two centuries earlier. In Japan, Tenkara developed in the mountains as an efficient way for professional fishermen and innkeepers to catch trout, char and ayu, and fishing flies are thought to have originated there for ayu fishing over 430 years ago, made from bent needles.
English writing on the craft took off with the Treatyse on Fysshynge with an Angle in 1496, attributed to Dame Juliana Berners. John Dennys, reputedly a fishing companion of Shakespeare, published The Secrets of Angling in 1613, whose editor first used the phrase cast a fly. Izaak Walton wrote The Compleat Angler in 1653, although his fly-fishing advice came from Thomas Barker, a retired cook, and Charles Cotton later added sixty-five fly patterns.
Tackle kept improving. Charles Kirby's hook of 1655 remains almost unchanged, rods gained running rings and bamboo tips in the 18th century, and Redditch became a tackle-making centre from the 1730s. Onesimus Ustonson opened his shop in 1761 and eventually held a royal warrant supplying three successive monarchs.
Source: Fly fishing
